The tales from down under

One of the joys of my job is chaperoning docs during pelvic exams. Majority of the docs in our department are men, so whenever they have the pleasure of performing a pelvic or rectal exam on a female patient, they ask one of the female nurses to be present during the procedure. Just in case. Doing the job that we do, we all need to cover our behinds.

Just last night when I was the charge nurse (which means I wasn't even assigned to an area in the department) I had to assist with three pelvics. I hate pelvics. First, I find it awkward just standing there doing nothing while the woman on the stretcher with her legs spread wide is looking at me with agony of discomfort and embarrassment in her eyes. Second, the smell that sometimes comes from those vaginas makes me cringe. If you've never smelled a tampon that was "lost" in a vagina for a few days, pray that you'll never get a chance to. Third, depending on the doc doing the pelvic, the experience can reach more than an expected level of awkwardness. I was the lucky witness to the following once:

We're in a middle of a pelvic exam. The doc takes somewhat longer than usual time fumbling around in between the woman's thighs with a speculum and then his fingers. Finally he says: "I haven't said it in ten years, but I can't seem to find your cervix... And I have long fingers."

It took all the willpower I could muster for me not to burst our laughing. The woman on the stretcher just looked at the doc with exasperation and a silent prayer in her eyes for the torture of a stranger man poking around her privates to be over.

I will also forever thank my lucky starts for letting me be present during a pelvic exam where one of the docs would diagnose vaginitis by smelling his fingers after pulling them out of a woman's vagina.

At the end of the day, pelvic exams are sometimes fun. Most of the time though, they are boring and take up a lot of the time that I could've spent on giving people pain meds, drawing their blood, and assessing new patients. But the docs need to cover their asses. It just makes me wonder why is it that no male nurses/docs need to chaperone me when I insert foley catheters into patients' penises?..